Questions for Mr. Ahmadinejad

I realize that reporters at the United Nations this week will be terribly busy covering the world body's annual proctological exam of Israel, but Karim Sadjapour suggests that reporters ask the Iranian president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, a few questions, if they happen to stumble upon him. Here are a few from Karim, to get things started:

Nongovernmental organizations, including Transparency International,
Freedom House and the World Bank, have said that Iran's rates of
corruption, economic malaise and repression during your tenure are
higher than those of Hosni Mubarak's Egypt and Zine el-Abidine Ben
Ali's Tunisia. Are you confident you won't share their fate?

Iran's
closest ally since the 1979 revolution, Syria, has brutally killed more
than 2,600 citizens this year -- including children -- who were
protesting for greater political freedoms. How do you reconcile your
country's close friendship with Bashar al-Assad's regime, given your
claim to stand for justice and the oppressed?

The anti-government protests in Iran on June 15, 2009,
were significantly larger than any protests in the Middle East this
year, yet you referred to the protesters as "dust and dirt." Do you
regret using that term?

In leaked diplomatic cables,
a senior Iraqi tribal leader asserted that your government has provided
him and other Iraqi officials "short-term marriages" with Iranian women
in order to garner influence. Does Iran use prostitution as a form of
statecraft?

During your presidency Iran has had the highest per
capita execution rate in the world, including recent public executions
and executions of people accused of being homosexual. Are you proud of
this record?

Ali Vakili Rad, who was convicted by the French in
1991 for the brutal stabbing death of 77-year-old Iranian democracy
activist Shapour Bakhtiar in Paris, was given an official hero's welcome at the Tehran airport upon his release from prison last year. Why does your government glorify assassins?

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